Chapter 75 #2
Evelyne noticed her father tense, barely perceptible save for the slight shift in his jaw. His hands did not move from the wolf-carved arms of his chair.
“We exiled no one,” Rhaedor replied evenly. “We exercised sovereign right to restrict religious jurisdiction.”
The Sanctoral’s eyes narrowed. “And now, as a result of their absence, one of your blood will be buried in ash.”
Evelyne inhaled sharply. The implication was clean. Sharp as a dagger to the gut.
The Sanctoral’s stare remained fixed on Rhaedor—unwavering, almost pitying.
“I do not speak to assign blame,” he explained, though the words dripped with it. “Only to remind the Crown that sacred authority, once dismissed, has consequences.”
A low murmur stirred among the councilors.
Rhaedor’s reply came like iron hammered flat. “Then perhaps the Assembly should remind itself that authority is earned through service.”
The Sanctoral’s face remained blank. “And yet, it is always the unbelievers who call for its assistance when the sky turns red.”
No one spoke back. As if to underline that fact, the Sanctoral moved his gaze from the chair where her father sat.
“We ask again,” the Sanctoral continued, gaze sweeping the council. “Were any suspects apprehended?”
“Yes,” Rhaedor replied, eyes narrowed. “Isolated, disarmed, and under guard in our dungeons.”
The man gave a single, slow nod. “Tomorrow,” he declared, “they will be transported to the Stronghold. They will face judgment there.”
Evelyne’s blood ran cold.
Keeper Halwen.
The Sanctoral shifted away. The Eclipsants approached the table. One of the robed figures extended an arm and took the book. No one intervened. No one risked it. Alaric tracked their path.
They veered next, falling in behind the Sanctoral.
As the great doors creaked open and the Assembly began their departure, one of the Eclipsants froze mid-stride. The figure angled its head, slow and deliberate, fixing their attention on Evelyne.
She felt it instantly, like ice sliding down her spine. It was the kind of gaze that stripped away layers. The second Eclipsant, a pace behind, followed suit, angling its head in the same direction.
She felt them in her brain.
The Sanctoral paused without turning. After a moment, he pivoted and his eyes found Evelyne, unblinking.
Her breath stilled. Sweat broke across the back of her neck, sliding beneath the heavy braid of her hair. She could feel them, all three, drawing closer without moving at all.
“We feel it,” the Sanctoral sighed. “There is magic here.”
The words landed like a stone in water. Faces turned pale. Evelyne’s heart thundered in her chest, wild and relentless.
But she did not flinch.
You may kill me, she thought, steady as the silence itself. I’ll join my brother. But I will not bow.
She lifted her chin by a fraction.
Alaric’s eyes had narrowed to slits.
“My daughter was a victim,” her father began. “She was injured by dark forces. She will undergo a cleansing rite before the next moon.”
The Sanctoral did not immediately respond. His gaze did not waver. Evelyne felt the moment stretch, a drawn cord threatening to snap. Alaric held her even closer. His thumb brushed against her arm, though she sensed the tension in his shoulders, the readiness to lunge.
The Sanctoral’s eyes focused on her, as though measuring the value of digging deeper. For one long, heavy breath, Evelyne thought he might. She could see the calculation behind his gaze. The balance between obedience and convenience, between risk and result.
In the end, he inclined his head a single inch. Then turned, but one of the Eclipsants did not follow immediately. They lingered. Staring. Evelyne felt them searching her chest, the corners of her mind.
At last, they also turned away and joined the others.
The chamber doors closed behind them with a hollow, echoing finality. Relief flooded the room like a wave. Councilors who had held their breath exhaled.
Evelyne stared down at the table, then up toward the sealed doors, wondering if it was over. If it ever would be.
Alaric leaned closer and spoke softly, close to her ear. “They won’t touch you. I swear it.”
She gave a small, hollow nod, but didn’t answer. Because she was not sure. They knew. And next time, the Assembly might not leave empty-handed.
“We can’t just sit here,” she began. “We have to do something.”
Her father didn’t acknowledge her at first. His finger tapped once against the armrest of his chair, a rhythm she knew by heart—disapproval, precise and unhurried. At last, he lifted his head. Stone met flame.
“It is not our jurisdiction,” he explained.
“And the prophecy?” she pressed. “That woman had the same sigil on her lips as Dasmon. You saw it yourself. Which means he—like her—delivered a prophecy after death.”
A silence slithered through the room.
“Which means there’s another name,” she staggered in his direction. “The next person to die with that symbol. The next line in that cursed song. You can call it heresy or superstition if it comforts you, but it’s happening. And we are not prepared.”
Rhaedor’s eyes narrowed, his mouth a thin slash of cold authority. “Prophecies don’t exist, Evelyne. They are the fevered nonsense of dying madmen. Words mean nothing without order to give them weight.”
She stared at him, and felt the fury bloom like a bruise behind her ribs.
No, not fury. Fury she could use. This was betrayal.
“So Thalen died for nothing?”
He didn’t flinch, but something behind his gaze hardened further.
“No reason at all?” she pressed. “Just another child who tripped down the stairs and landed on a sword?”
“That’s enough,” he snapped, the words cracking through the air.
Her voice was loud now, frost streaming from her lips. “Then give me a better reason. If not prophecy. If not magic. Then tell me, father—why did he die?”
“Evelyne,” Alaric warned, gazing at the cold mist dissolving in the air.
Rhaedor stood up. His hand curled tight around the edge of the war table, knuckles gone bloodless. His jaw clenched so hard a muscle twitched near his temple.
“I know you’ve lost a brother,” he thundered. “But I’ve lost an heir.”
The room dropped into silence. He didn’t let it linger.
“You are overcome with grief. We all are. But I cannot indulge it the way you can. I have to think a few steps ahead. I have to think about the kingdom. And that means seeing beyond this moment.”
He straightened slowly, eyes dark and sharp as obsidian. “What happened was a tragedy. But it must not become a weapon for chaos.”
She laughed—low, bitter, sharp enough to cut her own throat. “No. Not a weapon. Just a secret. Buried under politics and protocol until no one remembers his name.”
Rhaedor slammed his fist onto the table. The boom resounded like a war drum, and Evelyne flinched despite herself.
“When you are an empress,” he roared, each word enunciated like a verdict, “you will understand what it means to carry a kingdom on your spine. Until then, hold your tongue and remember your place. You are not the only one who has bled for this realm.”
He didn’t wait for her reply. He didn’t need one.
The dismissal was clear.
She looked at him—at the man who had shaped her into something sharp and still expected her not to cut.
And thought:
I’ve watched you rule my whole life.
And now I understand exactly what kind of empress I want to be—
One who never becomes you.
He sat like a fortress at the head of the council. His gaze flicked toward her, the unspoken command obvious: stay where it’s safe.
Evelyne didn't intend to.
She set her teacup on the mantle, the clink against the saucer drawing a few glances.
“I want to see Halwen,” she declared.
The king’s face tightened. “It’s unnecessary,” he countered. “Let the Magistrates deal with him.”
Across the table, the High Preceptor of Orvath nodded solemnly, as if blessing her father’s command. Ravik, however, didn’t hide his sideways glance at the priest.
“Your Highness, if I may,” The High Preceptor began, addressing Evelyne.
“Keeper Halwen is dangerously mad and possessed by remnants of the old gods. He is not the man you once knew. I am aware that he was your mentor and you need closure. So let me explain the circumstances. For your peace of mind.”
Evelyne raised her brow.
“There are things you should understand,” the Preceptor continued, his voice smooth and grave. “Long ago, when the gods first shaped this world and gifted it with life, they gave magic freely to mankind. They watched as we built, as we grew, and in time they grew jealous.”
“And so they cursed us,” he continued. “Magic, once a gift, became a hunger. It demanded payment—first from the land, then from the blood of men. Cities crumbled. People lost their loved ones. What we now call the Sundering was their vengeance made manifest.”
He paced slowly as he spoke.
“But three among the gods rebelled,” he recited, his voice rising with righteous fervor. “Orvath, Ilmora, and Rhyssa. They rose against their own kin, putting the old gods into slumber. Thanks to their defiance, the world was saved.”
He paused, as if granting her a moment to absorb the weight of it.
“But the curse remained,” he added. “Magic could not be undone—it could only be stilled. Orvath and Ilmora set the new direction. A world of law and order, where destruction could be kept at bay.”
The Preceptor’s expression grew pained, touched with sadness. “But Rhyssa wavered. She mourned the loss of the old ways. She wished to bring them back. And so her followers, even now, cling to forbidden rites. They seek to avenge her doubts.”
He spread his hands wide. “That is why the priests of Rhyssa do these things. That is why your Keeper believed he was fulfilling her will.”
Evelyne listened without moving, without betraying a single thought. Every child in Edrathen had been fed that tale by rote. Magic had once been good. Until the gods, in their mercy, had made it bad. Because it demanded a price no kingdom could afford.
When magic created, it destroyed in equal measure.
And now Evelyne had seen it with her own eyes.
Felt it in her own body.
The way the threads had carved into her lungs, into her very soul, demanding payment for the magic she used. She understood now, in a way the pretty myths had never taught her.
The Preceptor smiled gently, mistaking her silence for obedience. Evelyne smiled the way she had been taught to—graceful, serene. And silently vowed to find the real truth herself.
No matter what it cost.
For just the one person.
Ravik caught her gaze across the room and broke through the huddle of councilors and crossed to her. He moved stiffly, favoring his side. Old wounds and fresh ones making their claim on him, but his posture was unbroken. When he stopped before her, Evelyne offered a small nod.
“Deepest condolences,” Ravik said, his voice quieter than she expected.
Her throat tightened.
“Prince Thalen was a promising young man,” he went on, carefully formal, but not impersonal. “Brave. Bright. The kind of boy you hope your kingdom grows around.” He paused, jaw flexing. “I grieve his loss.”
It took her a breath to find her voice. “Thank you.”
They stood in silence for a moment. A pause for the shape Thalen had once occupied in the world.
“I owe you an apology,” she said simply. “For doubting you.”
A corner of Ravik’s mouth twitched, something close to a grim smile flickering and vanishing before it could fully form.
“You were right to doubt, Your Highness,” he replied quietly, inclining his head. “But more right to act.”
She looked up at him. “You knew it would come to blood.”
“I suspected,” he confessed. “But not how much. And not his.”
“Is the prophecy real?” she asked, though she wasn’t sure why. Maybe she just wanted to hear it aloud—from someone who had fought in that ruin, who had seen the blood on the stones and heard the screams echoing off the bones of history.
“I don’t know,” he said honestly. “But the dead woman spoke. And the mark was real.”
“And if it happens again?”
“Then you’ll do what you always do. Act.”
“Was that your attempt at encouragement?”
“Edrathen doesn’t breed poets anymore. But we remember our own.”
“Red does not forget,” she murmured.
He nodded.
“And what about you?” she asked, quieter now. “Will you remember this? Will you help, if it happens again?”
Ravik looked past his shoulder. “I’ll do what must be done,” he admitted. “Even if I’m ordered not to. I owe it to my wife. And the heir.”
“Do you believe you’ll escape the consequences?”
Ravik’s gaze slid to the council again. The Chancellor was now pontificating about jurisdiction. The High Preceptor sat still as ice. And somewhere near the end of the table, the Master of Coin was quietly calculating how much it would cost to remove blood from sacred stone.
Then Ravik’s eyes came back to hers.
“Be careful, Your Highness,” he warned. “The Assembly will move fast. If you want answers, you’ll have to move faster.”
Before she could speak again, he gave a sharp tilt of his head and slipped back into the crowd—swallowed by the tide of politics, as though the exchange had never existed at all.
Beside her, Alaric murmured under his breath, “Do you believe he is a friend?”
Evelyne kept her eyes on Ravik’s departing back.
“No,” she said, turning towards the window. “He is someone with the same enemy.”
Outside, the moon hung low in the sky, heavy and blood-red near the edge of the coming sunrise. She tilted her head.
Red.
In Edrathen, that color had been twisted into a lie. But that memory had always been hers. And she would reshape it.
As truth.
Someone had killed Dasmon and his entire bloodline to learn a single line of text.
It had happened under their noses. And it would happen again. It would keep happening. They, whoever they were, would keep stealing lives to pry free another scrap of the song.
Another moon. Another verse.
Until it was finished.
How important must those words be, for men and women to kill for them so easily? And what did it say about them—that they kept letting it happen?